Last week’s post on the importance and power of being direct blew up. I talked about how being direct saves time, shows the team that you’re working to cut through unnecessary, wasteful discourse, and makes everything more efficient.

But there are two other aspects to directness that I should have included and didn’t. I’m fixing that now.

The first is the importance of providing backup. Sometimes we’re not feeling brave enough to be the direct one initially. A colleague steps up and says, “Glinda, you arrived late and don’t have the context for this conversation; we already discussed and handled your questions. Let’s keep this moving forward and get you caught up later.”

Damn. Well done, colleague. You’re saving time, you’re being polite, and you’re protecting a roomful of people who were hearing Glinda look to rehash stuff that already been decided, just because she didn’t get to the meeting on time.

But the work isn’t over. Ideally, you can find a way to provide backup or support to your colleague, to show gratitude for their directness. A few approaches, depending on the situation:

• “Jordan’s right, Glinda. I can give you the Cliff’s Notes later this afternoon.”

• “Thanks, Jordan. I want to make sure we cover these three items in the time we have remaining.”

• “I agree, Jordan. Glinda, we need to move on for now, but I’m sure someone can get you up to speed later today."

You’re changing the world, one interaction at a time. You’re reinforcing Jordan’s good behavior. You’re modeling to others in the room that doing so is worthwhile, and that Jordan’s actions were great. You’re paying directness forward. This is a good thing.

The second key point I missed arose from a comment on my original post, which I’m reproducing here in its entirety:

Great post, and I've shared this around a lot. But I'm getting comments from a friend who says this is NOT her experience as a woman. When she's direct, she gets a lot of feedback that she's "brusque" or "short" or "difficult," or her tone is "overly aggressive."

I’ll be direct about myself: I’m a man, and I missed this hugely obvious reality in my initial post. I’m sorry about that.

Here’s an expanded version of my reply to this comment:

I hate — but also recognize — the workplace sexism flagged here. I’ve seen it happen, and it’s a great point to address.

For what it's worth, I got much better at directness after seeing others model it, especially including some powerful, strong women.

I recognize that I don’t have all the answers here, of course. But I also don’t think that it’s enough for me to write “As a man, I don’t like this, but I don’t know the best solution.”

So I have two main thoughts: One is, as per the above, men who see women saving time and sanity through directness need to provide support and backup in real time. “Thanks for saying that, Jordan. Great point. I’ll email a recap, Glinda, so you’ll be up to speed.” It’s beyond unfair that a woman can get labeled negatively for speaking directly; it’s sexist and wrong. Everyone else on the room should provide support, and that includes every gender represented in a meeting. But men should absolutely speak up in support and not shirk this responsibility.

But I wonder if there's an approach where your friend can at least directly take on the potential negative perception while being direct about the other thing, too. I want to emphasize that it absolutely sucks to even have to consider doing so, but there is that desire not to get assigned those crappy, unearned, sexist labels, here's an example of the approach I'd consider:

“Glen, I'm going to be direct, but my aim isn't to come off as brusque or short. We need to optimize this meeting and make sure we're getting the best use for everyone's time. We’re asking you detailed questions, and you’re giving gruff, one-word answers. I think we should reschedule so that we can give the rest of the team some time back now."

Let me reiterate: It sucks that anyone would need to do this extra couching. But truthfully framing direct feedback as explicitly for the benefit of everyone else makes it harder to mislabel directness as negative.